Oscar Watch: Will the Year's Best American Film Pick Up its One Measly Award Tonight?
Filed under: Drama, Sony, Critical Thought, Scripts, Politics, Oscar Watch
Anyone who reads Cinematical regularly knows that Oscar and I went through an amicable divorce a long while back. The Academy hasn't picked the best film of the year as the Oscar winner in at least ten years, in my opinion, nor are they above handing the big prize to a film that's not only unworthy, but legitimately bad. Crash? A Beautiful Mind? I'm not going to throw Chicago into that category, but it certainly didn't even deserve to be on the top ten list of any respectable critic, let alone walk away with the Best Picture statuette. Chalk up another major blunder this year. No matter which film walks away with Oscar -- whether it's Babel, The Departed, The Queen, Letters From Iwo Jima, or Little Miss Sunshine -- a really splendid work of art, Marie Antoinette, will go unrewarded. Normally, this is the part of the piece where I would launch into how all the critics were wrong and I was right, but the odd thing about the oversight of Marie is that the major critics seemingly agree with me.
Released back in October, before the calculated late-December releases begin muscling their way into the voters' memories, Marie was greeted by an ebullient four-star review by Roger Ebert. The Los Angeles Times' Carina Chocano seconded, calling the film "startlingly original," which it is. The Times A.O. Scott remarked -- "What to do for pleasure? Go see this movie, for starters." The Washington Post, Salon.com, The Hollywood Reporter, The Philadelphia Enquirer, Entertainment Weekly, and smaller outlets like Slant.com all heaped praise on the film, and declared it to be among the best of the year. Add in the pedigree of the director -- an important young filmmaker and prior Oscar winner, Sofia Coppola -- and it seems like the film would have been swept along by the tide until finally walking away the big winner tonight. Instead, the film will have only one opportunity to win an Oscar, in the throwaway category of Best Achievement in Costume Design. Yes, the costume work is good, but let's not kid ourselves -- it's a booby prize for a serious film, if it's won at all.
The film bravely tells the story of the legendary French-Austrian queen in a completely contemporary style, using soft-punk on the soundtrack and employing various other jarring anachronisms -- I think I even heard the 18th century queen use the word "like" a couple of times, Valley girl style -- all as an experiment for keeping us locked into the emotional headspace of a trapped heiress who has neither the education or the strong personality to make the most of her situation. In the face of the revolution, she is helpless to do anything about it, so she blocks it out -- as does Coppola. The starving masses of Paris go completely unseen until they are finally storming the Queen's palace. Once you share the Queen's surprise at having her dollhouse-world so quickly and forcefully interrupted, the hard work of creating sympathy for the historically vilified figure is done for you. On top of this, Coppola employed some subtle and remarkable visual innovations, including a totally unpredictable shot selection and long, quiet takes, to help blast the viewer out of their expectations.
The most charitable explanation for why Marie was snubbed on the Best Picture and Best Director fronts this year would be that the Academy members have simply become too involved in 'protecting' the Awards from criticism. As we've seen this year with some Best Picture nominees, the studios are not above coopting the general media to more or less force the Academy to either nominate a desired film or be prepared to pay hell for it in 'Why did Film X get snubbed?' stories. The Academy is notoriously vulnerable to media pressures, and probably simply couldn't fit Marie in amongst all their more important considerations, like making sure Clint Eastwood, Martin Scorsese and other luminaries get their supposedly just desserts. Do Matt Damon and other stars think they are helping the Academy by essentially accusing it of corruption in advance, if it doesn't give out an award to a certain director? What does Scorsese care if he wins anyway? Alfred Hitchcock never won Best Director, for God's sake. Maybe he could have gotten on the phone to tell his stars to shut up.
A less charitable -- and more likely -- explanation is that the voters simply no longer pay enough attention to the tide of films that come rolling by each year to pick out the best ones. They have a foggy idea of what they are being bashed over the head to nominate, so they roll over without much of a fuss and nominated it. They know enough to zig where the Globes zag, but that's just a self-preservation instinct, not any sign of moxy. I have to tune in and watch the Oscars tonight, but don't mistake that for actually thinking that what we're covering is actually anything of great importance. It's high-school writ large -- the bullies and the popular kids will muscle their way onto the main stage, while the special kids will sit back in the shadows and wait to be recognized later. The special, eggshell world created in Marie Antoinette is a remarkable filmic idea brought to life and one that doesn't need the stamp of approval of a bunch of 70-year old retired make-up stylists.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-25-2007 @ 4:44PM
DaveTehWave said...
Anything that has Dunst in it isn't worthy of nomination, let alone winning an Oscar IMO.
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2-25-2007 @ 5:07PM
Seth Foreman said...
I agree with you 100% Ryan, Marie Antoinette was one of this years best films. I think Sofia did a great job and it's a shame that this film has been largely overlooked by the Academy, as was Pride & Prejudice with Keira Knightley.
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2-25-2007 @ 5:52PM
Dickens said...
This movie was horrible!
The only thing this movie deserves is a Razzie.
Plus the boom was visible in like 10 scenes.
I think being tied up and suffocated with a plastic bag would be more fun than watching that trash again.
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2-25-2007 @ 7:08PM
GhaleonQ said...
I think that you went a bit far, as well as unfair criticism of technical awards.
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2-25-2007 @ 7:57PM
L.G. said...
Marie Antoinette is a crapfest just begging me to hurl all kinds of cyber-bile and web-feces at it.
First of all, to be fair, I'll admit that I am ever-decreasingly fond of Kirsten Dunst and her screen presence and I'm not exactly a huge fan of Sofia Coppola to begin with and I was coerced and dragged to see this movie.
I love Lost In Translation, although credit for this movie's greatness lies mainly in its phenomenal cast. The rest of it I would assign to the madly unique and alienating wonder of Tokyo, itself. The Virgin Suicides, with its undeniable sense of self-importance and junky, faux-indie-flavored ambiguous ending, was frustratingly terrible and a poor adaptation of a pretty reasonable book. It was only rendered watchable by the painfully brief presence of Josh Hartnett as that gleefully sociopathic, womanizing, total douchebag dreamboat Trip Fontaine and James Woods' even briefer performance as the grieving, bewildered, broken-man dad. A performance that was genuinely heartbreaking and memorable. Oh, yes, and the movie's mercifully short running time. One more misfire from Sofia Coppola and I'm going to wholeheartedly consider Lost In Translation a freak incident, a fluke, a happy accident, at best. As it stands, I'd give just about all props for that film's success to the two leads and their great chemistry.
Unfortunately, "barely watchable" isn't even an accolade that I'd reserve for Marie Antoinette. The movie was two-plus hours of pompous, self-absorbed, period costume party. One you definitely weren't invited to and didn't mind one bit but, for some damn reason were forced to watch from a window, outside in the blistering cold. Seriously, for over one hundred-twenty minutes, you watch Dunst and company get pampered, fed, drunk, party-hearty and overdressed beyond belief. I can see how and why Coppola would want to underscore the whole youthful reveling in frivolity, but the whole enterprise never comes close to rising above being an exercise in such. And gimme a break, please, a montage of delectable desserts and high heels set to "I Want Candy"? I dunno if I'm being insulted outright or simply pandered to.
Speaking of obvious, musical montages, the whole film drifts by listlessly while a disappointing soundtrack comprised entirely of overrated, faux-trendy, hipster indie pop crap whines along in the background. It's like Coppola hit play on her iPod Shuffle and submitted it as a soundtrack, as none of it has any bearing on either character or plot, probably because there isn't much of either to begin with. It's just aims to be cool and, like everything else, falls flat on its face.
I spent the entire running time cyclically wondering why this movie exists, how the production was granted access to shoot on location, why anyone would put up any kind of financial backing for this hollow piffle, how cool it would have been if that morally bankrupt and self-interested soldier-Count Marie has an affair with had been played by James Franco, why Jason Schwartzman was slumming it here, and when in hell this maddening P.O.S. fashion show would end while I shifted my weight in my seat.
Judging by the painfully audible coughs, sighs, groans, and creaking seats of the audience in the theater I saw it in, I wasn't alone. Even the poor sucker I went with honestly hated it, despite the fact that it was her idea to see it and she was dead-set on loving it from the get-go. And people our age and all (18-23 year olds) were, quite possibly, the target demographic for a movie like this. It was a movie-going experience I am embarrassed to have paid for and, unfortunately, won't forget anytime soon.
I only agreed to see this movie because Peter Travers, in what surely had to be some kind of altered state, gave it a positive spotlight review.
When I finally realized that this movie was going to suck completely, I took solace in the knowledge that Rip Torn and Asia Argento's scenes together were something to relish...and then Louis XV died and Argento is then seen hustling her gorgeous self outta the palace and completely disappears for the rest of the movie. Good for her. Excruciatingly bad for me. It was like Coppola had been taunting me with the promise of witty, naughty energy to come and then pulled that rug out from under me. The way I would describe watching this movie at that point would be how uncomfortable I would imagine it would be being hanging at the gallows when your neck doesn't snap when they pull the lever and are forced to dangle there, choking and writhing and spinning in horrible pain until you expire.
And do you remember that scene from the trailer where Dunst is daintily jogging down that hallway looking all distraught while that New Order song plays on? Recall how annoyed you felt? That's the whole movie, safely, in a nutshell. Except when you see that scene in context in the movie, you wanna march right up to that screen and lay Dunst out with a knockout punch square in the jaw because her character (and the film, itself) has just soared to new, unbelievably self-absorbed, unsympathetic heights.
Last year's Miami Vice was a high-profile movie that was universally slammed for its tedium and soullessness and high regard for itself, how does Marie Antoinette beat the rap? This film definitely belongs at least a mile from any sentence containing the words "best", "great", or "brilliant" and even farther from any guy who's gold, short, and bald.
You, too, should stay far, far away from this pretentious crap, at all costs. I wish I had.
Bottom line: Marie Antoinette hates you almost as much as you could possibly hate it, which is quite frightening.
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2-25-2007 @ 8:14PM
L.G. said...
I will, however, give a little credit where it is due, to a fellow Lance, Mr. Acord for his rock-solid cinematography. The lush location scenery practically shoots itself but it's gotta be difficult making those as smug as Dunst look reasonable onscreen.
When I read the headline to this post I figured it was going to be all about Children Of Men but then I saw the production still from Marie and reread the mention of a single Oscar and my worst fears were realized.
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2-26-2007 @ 12:51AM
The Zero Boss said...
"I love Lost In Translation, although credit for this movie's greatness lies mainly in its phenomenal cast. The rest of it I would assign to the madly unique and alienating wonder of Tokyo, itself."
What crap. Lost in Translation doesn't show you Tokyo; it shows you Sofia Coppola's Tokyo - the very limited subset of Tokyo she found important to her story. If you loved Tokyo in the movie, then you loved her direction. Given credit where credit is due.
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2-26-2007 @ 1:43AM
karina said...
Well, it won. It was so strange - thwy had t cut to FFC, because Sofia didn't even show up. But I'm with you, Ryan -- it's our Barry Lyndon, for sure.
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2-26-2007 @ 9:18AM
Richard von Busack said...
I rather like Kirsten Dunst, so I'm especially sorry that Marie Antoinette was as wretched as it was. You could see what this film's reception had done to Dunst just by seeing her face last night. She looked like she'd just got out of three months in the hospital.
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2-26-2007 @ 3:44PM
Nathaniel said...
Ryan, where do you live?? I assume since you're a blogger that you have some sort of access to what's going on in the world, but this article would seem to argue that you're completely ignorant, at least about the general opinion of Marie. Since when does a 65 on metacritic mean this movie was beloved by critics!? Of all the nominated films Babel was by far the lowest rated at 69. It may have gotten some good reviews but it also got some pretty middling reviews by some big critics. I'm hear to tell you that the only reason Marie didn't get any big nominations wasn't because of some conspiracy theory it was because people just didn't like it that much - critics and audiences alike. When this movie came out and people saw it was when its oscar chances died a quick death. If you paid any attention to the awards race you'd know that - there was no push on anyone's part to get this film nominated because everyone knew it was pointless because people just didn't like it that much. This may not matter to a crowd pleasing movie like Dreamgirls, where the box office and the absence of negative reviews allowed the production company to mount a big oscar campaign, but Marie didn't have either and therefor it didn't stand a chance. Anyone could tell you that. Do your homework (job) before you write stuff like this.
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